Wednesday, May 03, 2006

This is entertainment?

Normally the BBC devotes acres of news-time to its own doings and the comings and goings of its staff. This little item, though stayed in the Entertainment section for some reason.

Apparently an independent committee, chaired by British Board of Film Classification president Sir Quentin Thomas found that well, how shall I put it? That the BBC, which is, naturally

“committed to being fair, accurate and impartial and UK viewers regarded it as unbiased”

is, apparently, less than so when it reports on the Middle East. There’s a surprise. Most of us have been saying that for years.

But then we had been saying for years that the BBC was considerably less than fair, accurate or impartial on the subject of the EU and Britain’s membership of it until there was a report that confirmed all that and promised to improve matters. Nothing ever came of that and, I expect, nothing much will come of this.

The report did suggest that next time the BBC reports about someone detonating a bomb on a bus full of civilians, the act be called terrorism. I presume that applies to bombs being detonated outside falafel stalls as well. We shall see whether the BBC complies with that. At least, the young lady reporter who wept tears over Arafat dying is no longer reporting from there.